^ I feel sorry for your children.
Puppies- this is a kid with a boyfriend and a distracting/ time consuming EC, not someone making crystal meth in the garage.
Sheesh.
Seriously, she hasn’t flunked out yet. I would give her a chance to get it together; I know many kids who didn’t turn it around until junior or even senior year–and they can go on to grad school, or find a good job. Why stunt her possible success by pulling the plug now? It seems like that would just hasten a downward spiral, without a lot of hope.
^ As I feel sorry for OP’s daughter who IMO was not raised to give her best effort. We love our children, and they know it. We understand we have a stricter standard than many families, but they understand and accept it, and we are immensely proud of them. Sure, there have been family tensions along the way, but we have always tried to explain to them our point of view, and we listen to theirs. Whether they choose to raise my future grandkids this way will be their decision.
Please understand that I don’t mean this as a shot at nor any attack on OP, nor anyone else’s parenting skills or decisions - just as I don’t want to think @emilybee is personally attacking me.
OP’s daughter was high achieving in high school so this comes as a surprise.
But that is tough, 3puppies. I wince when even family members label the kid or the parenting. As said, she was good thru hs. Something else is now at play and no one knows if that’s just distraction, some bad fit at the college, or something else. Nor whether a break or being threatened with a push out of the nest is the best for this gal.
Puppies: Glad it is working for your children. It is easy to believe that one has all the answers in child raising when one’s kids who toe the line and turn out exactly as you expect them to be. That doesn’t work for every kid or every family.
I don’t know the answer OP. My suggestion would be to really sit down and listen to her and hear what she is saying and what her plan is. You probably don’t want to either continue to pay for her to do badly in school OR drop out completely. So you may have to compromise. One of my kids stopped going to school and since he is supporting himself, there is nothing I can do to change his decision. I know several other kids that flamed out at their expensive schools, but did great when they came home and commuted to Big State U. One ended up going back to his old school, the other finished at Big State U. I also know parents who threatened the kids with having to come home, but backed down with some improvement even if the kid did not meet the bar set by the parents.
When my oldest was going to college, my friends told me to “make sure she has some skin in the game” as a general principle. So, as I mentioned, we had her take out the $5500 loan which we said we would pay for if she maintained a 3.0 average (which she did with no problem)
“skin in the game”, in terms of loans, may not matter to a student who has trouble going to class and thus prioritizing long-term goals over short-term “wants”. Loan repayment may see far away, and thus inconsequential. The student has had two years already, I think something more immediate is necessary.
Perhaps a first requirement should be that the daughter meets the 2.75 threshold needed for acceptance into her major. OP can of course discuss with her why she thinks she didn’t make it the first time, what she’s doing to make sure it doesn’t happen this year, what her midterm grades were. But indicating that if she doesn’t make it into her major now, her parents are wasting their money and she needs to come home, would be logical. That’s a short term issue: if in one month she hasn’t changed, her life on campus at this college is over. (We can imagine she could return from the other college, but how likely is that)? And as a first incentive measure, take the car away. The boyfriend can come and visit if he needs her so badly.
3puppies: once you have a difficult child, you understand it’s not all about you and your parenting so you stop patting yourself on the back for the fine job you did with the first 3. You have had pliable children you could mold.
If you’re lucky, you stay one step ahead of said difficult child and learn quickly to pick your battles. I picked safety and just about everything else became a non-issue. My other kids said I let her get away with everything and it was generally true. She learned to conform to earn things she wanted, but she was never very bribable. At 16, she is maturing, but there are still some very difficult times. As the saying goes, she marches to a different drummer.
OP–I would take away the car. Let him visit her (but maybe he won’t.) If she can get her GPA up to where she needs it, let her stay at school as long as it’s affordable. If she can’t get off probation, she won’t be allowed to return, but SHE will be the one that made that happen. We told our kids that the school they chose is affordable if they keep their merit scholarship. If they don’t meet the required 2.75 GPA, it’s the state school for them.
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“I would stop payment on the checks and change the locks at home.”
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wow, just wow. And, I thought I was a strict parent. My kids would have to do something seriously criminally wrong for me to “change the locks”.
There’s a difference between being “strict” and being “rigid”. The philosophy of rigid parenting assumes that each child is the same and that a child can be parented from essentially one set of rules. If so, then replace all parents with a book.
After reading through some posts, I’m with 3puppies on this issue.
This daughter has had it WAY too easy for WAY too long. I wish my only responsibility is to just go to class. Like a lot of students, we had to work on top of everything else.
The #1 thing is the car needs to be taken away. Second, she needs to come home ASAP.